Hehman et al. (2012) investigated group attitudes about policies that affect minority groups. The researchers discussed the main two ways that immigrants are integrated into society, and the preferences that White and Black people have about them (Hehman et al., 2012). The first type of integration is called assimilation in which immigrants give up their previous culture and completely join the mainstream culture and attitudes of their new home. The other type is called pluralism in which immigrants take part in the culture of their new society while also keeping their previous cultural identity. According to Hehman et al. (2012), White people think that assimilation is the best method, but Black people favor pluralism. Hehman et al. (2012) suggested that majority groups prefer assimilation because they want the group’s values and cultural identity to stay the same. However, minority groups think that pluralism allows individuals to have their own identity while still identifying with the larger group. Hehman et al. (2012) decided to study the attitudes of Whites and Blacks in a school with a majority of Whites, and in a school with a majority of Blacks. This way the researchers could see if Blacks would have a different opinion as the majority group; even though they remain a minority nationally. Hehman et al. (2012) hypothesized that Whites at both schools would prefer assimilation more than Blacks for national policies, but that the minority group in each school would prefer pluralism for school issues.
Hehman et al. (2012) went to a majority White university and a majority Black university and recruited almost 500 students in total. All of the students filled out surveys that measured their preferences for either assimilation or pluralism for university policies, and separately for national policies. After their statistical analysis, the researchers found that Whites were in favor of assimilation much more than Blacks in both universities when it came to national issues. However, Blacks were more in favor of assimilation policies on the university level in the majority Black school, but were more in favor of pluralism policies for the university when they were the minority there. At the majority Black school, Whites’ preference for university pluralism policies was slightly higher than Blacks, but there was a much higher preference for assimilation policies in this same group. The highest score for assimilation policies on a national scale was this same group of Whites at a majority Black school (Hehman et al., 2012). Hehman et al. (2012) concluded that their hypotheses were generally supported by the results because when each group was a minority they preferred pluralism more than they did as the majority. Hehman et al. (2012) stated that their study was important because it looked at the views of nonimmigrants from a single country in majority and minority roles. They suggested that group integration preferences are caused by the group’s status within the larger society and the goals of the group (Hehman et al., 2012).
I was surprised by the results of this study because I would not have thought that a group who has always been a national minority, and subject to years of prejudicial treatment, would take a different view of integration when in a majority role. It was interesting that even though Blacks preferred assimilation more for school policies when they were the majority, Whites still preferred assimilation far more than Blacks at the same school and as the minority. So even though Whites always preferred assimilation more than Blacks, it was the preferences for pluralism that changed according to the group’s status. This made me wonder if other countries also feel so strongly about keeping their cultural identities, and if all dominant groups within different levels of society hold the same preference for new members’ total assimilation of the group’s cultural norms and attitudes. Some countries have large amounts of many different ethnicities, and even multiple national languages. Do these countries still hold majority and minority preferences, and is it about some other aspect of cultural identity? This study is very relevant to current controversial views about immigration.
